d yours, and by consequence should have more ample license to
reveal myself to you as I am; and therefore have more patient sufferance
on your part than would be due to me, were I more discreet, in the
relation of the tale which I am about to tell you. 'Twill be, then, a
story none too long, wherefrom you may gather with what exactitude it
behoves folk to observe the injunctions of those that for any purpose use
an enchantment, and how slight an error committed therein make bring to
nought all the work of the enchanter.

A year or so ago there was at Barletta a priest named Dom Gianni di
Barolo, who, to eke out the scanty pittance his church afforded him, set
a pack-saddle upon his mare, and took to going the round of the fairs of
Apulia, buying and selling merchandise. And so it befell that he clapped
up a close acquaintance with one Pietro da Tresanti, who plied the same
trade as he, albeit instead of a mare he had but an ass; whom in token of
friendship and good-fellowship Dom Gianni after the Apulian fashion
called ever Gossip Pietro, and had him to his house and there lodged and
honourably entreated him as often as he came to Barletta. Gossip Pietro
on his part, albeit he was very poor and had but a little cot at
Tresanti, that scarce sufficed for himself, his fair, young wife, and
their ass, nevertheless, whenever Dom Gianni arrived at Tresanti, made
him welcome, and did him the honours of his house as best he might, in
requital of the hospitality which he received at Barletta. However, as
Gossip Pietro had but one little bed, in which he slept with his fair
wife, 'twas not in his power to lodge Dom Gianni as comfortably as he
would have liked; but the priest's mare being quartered beside the ass in
a little stable, the priest himself must needs lie beside her on the
straw. Many a time when the priest came, the wife, knowing how honourably
he entreated her husband at Barletta, would fain have gone to sleep with
a neighbour, one Zita Carapresa di Giudice Leo, that the priest might
share the bed with her husband, and many a time had she told the priest
so howbeit he would never agree to it, and on one occasion:--"Gossip
Gemmata," quoth he, "trouble not thyself about me; I am well lodged; for,
when I am so minded, I turn the mare into a fine lass and dally with her,
and then, when I would, I turn her back into a mare; wherefore I could
ill brook to part from her." The young woman, wondering but believing,
told her hus